Thursday, December 27, 2012

Yes Cecil, A Long Story Short, Part Twenty

Redpath museum

Duncan stood on the sidewalk looking
towards the limestone outlines of the Redpath Museum, its Classical
Revival architecture rising up in the fog like a Temple on a Greek
mountain side. The pediment, the medallions, the columns, and the
peaks of the transepts revealed themselves in the slowly shifting air
as if it were an art history slide show and he was a sleepy
undergraduate. As he approached the massive stone front staircase, he
managed to glimpse a figure looking out of the large half-open door
A tall bearded man in a long coat. But only for an instant as the fog
thickened and shifted.

Of course, he should look up Tom, Tom Culacino. He could ask him to look at
the strange manuscript he found under the kitchen cabinets. A childhood school friend, and former drummer with The Splices, and now a Professor and researcher in computing, Tom had done well. As Duncan stood looking towards the Museum sheltering in the fog, he recalled the vivid memory of a school visit. It must have been 1968 or 1969. They were running around the upper floor and came up to the dark suited legs of a museum guard. Their teacher had not been amused. Duncan's memory was of dark wood, glass cases, and natural light coming from the windows above, with dusty scents from around the world, a confusion of decay and stasis, a building steeped in the past. The enormous, to them, Dinosaur, and the other natural, anthropological and archaeological relics had overwhelmed their senses with wonder. Duncan
turned around and made his way back towards the science building.
Tom's research in higher computing was completely over Duncan's
head, but he liked Tom for his quirky sense of humour, bizarre
interests and complete knowledge of the latest and obscurest music.
His work involved concepts such as compiler optimizations,
method-level speculations, return value predictions, speculative
multithreadings, and phase-based adaptive recompilations which were
as foreign to Duncan as perhaps false band, doublure, cocked,
tipped-in, rubricated, and cancel leaf were to Tom.

Academic terminologies were rife. As he
approached the science building, he remembered flipping through some
published papers in post-graduate psychology and truly only finding
common ground in the syntax. He had been young, and briefly dating a slightly older secretary in the post-graduate department of psychology, his
mind only familiar with basic psychology terms and Jungian and
Freudian concepts. When she gave him a tour of the labs, he had been
deeply disturbed by the sight of white mice with small tubes
connected to their open scalps, non-voluntary candidates wedded chemically to an instrumentality of knowledge, an instrumentality that altered forever his view of the discipline. Not a Freudian slip in sight. Bio-chemistry had taken over.
That had been in the late 1970s. Duncan could only imagine what they
were doing presently. Perhaps even the syntax was beyond him now.

Walking down the corridor towards
Tom's office, he remembered it was Monday, and the wizard was
unlikely to be found. He knocked on his door anyway. No response. Two
more knocks. Not a sound. Back at the elevator Duncan noticed an
associate of Tom's, Frank Woo, coming towards him.

“Dunc isn't it?”

“That's right,” Duncan said smiling, acknowledging Tom's nickname for him, one discovered from an Aussie
song called Duncan.

“If you're looking for Tom, he's in the cafeteria. I think he's
working on a two cup problem.”

“Oh, thanks Frank.

He spotted Tom at a corner table,
earbuds leading to his jacket pocket, his fingers tapping on his cup.

“Hi Tom.”

Tom nodded and smiled at Duncan.
“FIDO,” he said.

Duncan raised his eyebrows and sat
down. “Fido?”

“Fog Investigation and Dispersal
Operation. We could use it today don't you think.”

“I like the side burns. Quite . . .
fetching,” Duncan said, trying not to stare.

“Do you know that Luther Wright
and the Wrongs might be huge if they were called Luther Wrong
and the Wrights. Just a little
algorithm fun. So, Dunc, what brings you round the numbers side of
things?”

“I have this odd
manuscript made up of numbers and letters. It mimics a text, but it is
essentially gibberish to me. I was wondering if you could take a
quick look and give me your opinion.”

“Sure, why not.
Doesn't look like you have anything with you though. Is it in your
memory? They used to prize their memories back in the day.”

“What day would
that be?”

“That would be
the . . . Medieval day and earlier.”

“Sorry. Very
little room left up here. No vacancy. Or too much depending on your
position. I just happened to be passing the Redpath Museum on my way to the library on
bookish bus, when I remembered you.”

“I haven't been there in years. I wonder how the stuffed lion is holding up."
"Yeah, I forgot about him. Probably a little faded, frayed and forlorn."
"That sounds like you're quoting from one of your early songs. So, how is Amelia?”

“Thriving Dunc,
thriving. Well, anytime you have the thing, just drop it by the
office. No guarantees I'll be able to decipher it, but I will give it
a look over.”

“Give it the 1,
2, 3 eh? Great, many thanks mate. All the best to Milly.”

“All our best to
the lovely Amelia.”

Duncan
left Tom with his fingers tapping to Luther Wright and the
Wrongs, and whatever two cup
problem, paradox or perplexity troubled him.

*

Rebecca
Haffner heard her name mentioned, then her assistant saying, 'just a
minute, and I will check.' Interruptions were unusual on Monday
mornings. Unwelcome as well. Robert, her assistant, knocked lightly
on the half-open door and popped his head in.

“There
is a Duncan Strand here asking if he could possibly see you for a few
minutes.”

Nodding
towards her book and paper covered desk as if hearing news of great
import, she said “Show him in.” She leaned back in her black
leather chair and rocked imperceptibly as she heard the shuffling of
feet coming towards her door.

“My
apologies for upsetting the flow of your morning Rebecca.”

“Not
at all. Have a seat. It's not often I see you without your book bag.
Haven't lost it have you?”

“No,
nothing like that.”

“So,
what can I help you with?”

“You
are the most knowledgeable book person I know . . .”

“Ah,
flattery is often the precursor to a demand.”

Duncan
smiled. “More my appreciation of you knowledge than flattery. But,
yes, there is a request. I have come across an unusual watermark that
I have been unable to trace with my personal reference books, and
knowing of your . . yes, more appreciation, extensive research in
such areas, you might be able to bring it to light for me.”

“Do
you have it with you?”

After
telling Rebecca the details of how he found it bound with the cash book, he gave her his finely drawn facsimile.

“And
this is half of the watermark is it?”

“Yes,
I believe so.”

“De
umbris idearum,” she said almost to herself.

“I'm
sorry Rebecca, what was that?”

“Early
watermarks were more than trade signs, they were seen as
thought-fossils, thought-crystals, hieroglyphics many of which held
significance. Cryptograms and ciphers in the
texts were common.” She paused and put the paper down. “What type
of paper are we talking about?”

“I
would say a thick coarse paper, probably around 1600 or so. That's
what I feel.”

Rebecca
nodded her head.

“Hmm, I can't be
certain based on the little before me, but it is likely Bohemian, possibly Oppenheim. The watermark is unusual. It is possible the text is a . . .
Rosicrucian publication."

It was
Duncan's turn to nod his head, his eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Not
quite my area of expertise,” he said, “but that is certainly
interesting to hear. I shall do some research.”

“Is
your alumni membership up to date?”

“Yes,
yes, it is.”

“Good, the macro and the microcosm of the world is at your fingertips,” she said gesturing above and
around her to the library that was her daily abode.

"Many thanks Rebecca, I will keep you abreast of any developments."

"Bonne chance mon ami."

Duncan
stood in the elevator descending from the rare books department,
checking his watch and thinking his time was limited. As the door
opened on the ground floor, he recognized the man who often sat on
the park bench near the restaurant, now well-dressed and coiffed,
walking towards the passage to the undergraduate library. Duncan
followed trying to avoid looking at him. Perhaps he was correct in thinking him a student in a sociological experiment. The man
made his way to the elevator of the Redpath library and pushed the
button. He turned about and looked around and stared at Duncan who walked up to
stand nearby checking his watch again. Together with two other
students, they rose to the third floor, Duncan waited for the other
three to disembark before following. They each made their way into
the library like pinballs in a game, dispersing in different
directions by the force of their necessities. Duncan had rarely used this part of the library but he
found it much improved since his days as a student. The mystery man
made his way into the book stacks as if he knew his way.
Duncan stood at a catalogue computer and, trying to think of
something to look up, typed in Rosicrucian watermarks. The man
emerged with a number of large books and made his way behind Duncan
towards the comfortable chairs near the windows. Duncan glanced over.
Art books. Late Renaissance art. Bronzino.

Chumley's Rest

On Books

Henry James Quotes

The only success worth one's powder was success in the line of one's idiosyncrasy. Consistency was in itself distinction, and what was talent but the art of being completely whatever it was that one happened to be? One's things were characteristic or were nothing.

-The Next Time (Story originally published in The Yellow Book; issued in his collection Embarrassments, 1896.)

"We know too much about people in these days; we hear too much. Our ears, our minds, our mouths, are stuffed with personalities. Don't mind anything that anyone tells you about anyone else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself." (R. Touchett)